Our challenge is to try to reconcile the variousmodels into a single 2018 model that solves or at least minimises the effects of these problems while preserving the existing maps (and the text they’re based on) as much as possible.
As with the last Lining Up project, I’m going to do this by exploring the possibilities and soliciting feedback from the Mystara community.
Solution 1: Use Jurassic Mystara as is.
The Jurassic-based world shows the true shapes of the continents.
Fit our assembled coastlines to Jurassic Mystara, shifting land masses as necessary within the confines of the hex grid. As detailed in the last article, some displacement is necessary to fit Brun in its more southerly position while still fitting in the Isle of Dawn, Ochalea and the Pearl Islands, but hopefully it’s doable.
In the next article, I’m going to propose some solutions for your consideration, broken down into pros and cons. But first, there’s the issue of georegistration.
Georegistering Jurassic Mystara
Regardless of which solution we decide upon, Jurassic Mystara will need to be georegistered. This means matching up the coastlines of the Master Set world map — or indeed my 2016 model — to the Jurassic Earth map as closely as possible. With the coastlines in place, we can lock in Jurassic Mystara’s georegistration, and then apply that to all of the other maps.
This is not a precise science: the maps don’t fit perfectly, so exact locations are slightly arbitrary. Nevertheless, the closer the placement is to the Jurassic Earth map, the truer the shapes will be on the globe.
There are a number of decisions to make even with this. Let’s take a look at these now.
The Brun Rotation Conundrum
CM1’s continental map of Brun is slightly rotated when compared with the Master Set’s world map, by approximately 2.2º. (You can see this in the image above, where the red outlines are based on CM1 — look at the south coast of Brun and compare the red and black lines.)
The question is, which version is correct?
Notably, all hex maps were based on CM1’s model (to a reasonable degree of accuracy). At the least, they were closer to CM1 than the Master Set map. In my 2016 model I took this to mean that CM1’s version of Brun was more accurate, and adapted the two extremities not on CM1’s map (the tips of Hyperborea and the Arm of the Immortals) by rotating Master Set Brun to fit.
I also used the larger scale hex maps to revise the continental outlines of Brun.
With all of this in mind, I’m inclined to keep this updated version of Brun.
The real clincher for me is that the 2.2º rotation doesn’t seem to give either version of Brun an edge when compared with the Jurassic Earth map; in fact, Brun is a pretty loose fit regardless of which map is chosen.
At around this time two years ago, I finished my Lining Up Mystara project, winding up 11 years of attempts to reconcile all of Mystara’s officially published maps into a single, cohesive whole.
The project ended with a precise 3D model of the world, with dimensions for the Outer World, the Hollow World, and the polar openings all locked in.
Fast forward two years, and I finally found time to begin codifying the results of the project, beginning with a series of world maps along with continental maps done in 72 miles per hex. Everything seemed to be going well, and all of these maps were progressing well.
Then a bombshell hit when I came across Lance Duncan’s Mystara Web Map project from last year. Together with criticism for faulty assumptions and geographical inaccuracy in my project (ouch), Lance joined the dots between Mystara’s inspiration in a map of Jurassic Earth and the projection of the Master Set’s world map. He argued that since the Jurassic map was drawn in the Mollweide projection, Mystara’s map was also in that projection.
At first I argued against this idea, on the basis that just because Mystara was inspired by ancient Earth (something that has been widely known for many years) doesn’t mean that it must be treated in the same way, and that the original designers likely had little or no knowledge of projections. Furthermore, Lance favoured following the Immortal Set notion that Mystara was ancient Earth, and therefore was the same size and scale. This is highly problematic, since it would mean reinterpreting the scale of the hex maps.
However, while all of these points are quite valid, they’re actually also irrelevant — at least as far as projection is concerned. This was made crystal clear to me when Lance posted some test pictures of Jurassic Earth-based Mystara (which I like to call “Jurassic Mystara”) on a globe. (You can view the Facebook posts here if they are not appearing embedded below.)
It comes down to this: regardless of the intentions of Mystara’s original designers, the shapes of the continents are based on a Mollweide projection map. It therefore follows that those shapes will only look “right” on the globe if they are handled in that projection. (Scale is a separate issue.)
Comparison
It’s very easy to check the veracity of this, simply by placing both my Lining Up Mystara model (which I now refer to as my 2016 model) and the Jurassic Mystara model onto the globe and comparing. (I used a standard globe rather than my 3D Mystara model in the interest of simplicity.)
Looking at the main hemisphere straight on. Shape-wise, the area around the equator is similar in both models. Alphatia tilts to the northeast; the difference in shape comes from the Master Set map, and can be ignored.
Focusing on the main continent of the setting, Brun. The 2016 model’s northern parts are clearly pinched, and not just at the poles.
A look at Skothar’s rather different shapes. The shape of Jurassic Mystara is rather different to the distinctive shape we’re used to, but it also looks a lot more like Asia.
The great Davania. Jurassic Mystara’s shape is significantly greater, while 2016’s is rather skeletal-looking.
To sum up: while the shape of Skothar may take some getting used to, Brun undeniably looks far better on Jurassic Mystara’s globe. What’s more, Davania is the huge continent we’ve always expected it to be. Overall, the continents are as large as you would expect them to be given their real-world analogues: Brun is composed of North and Central America; Skothar is made up of parts of Europe and Asia, with the rest of Europe in between, the Isle of Dawn being Britain and Ireland and Alphatia being Scandinavia; and Davania is South America, Africa, Antarctica, India, and Australia.
On the other hand, my 2016 model’s continents universally suffer from pinched poles, due to the erroneous use of Equirectangular projection. This was something that I noted back in 2016 that still needed to be fixed, but it goes further than that, affecting far lower latitudes than I had at first thought. Brun’s northern parts look squashed, while Davania’s Vulcanian Peninsula is rather small. Skothar’s Nentsun Peninsula is squashed into oblivion.
It’s easy to see this in hindsight now. I’m sure I should have realised earlier, because I’m quite familiar with the concept that the Equirectangular projection does not show the “true” shapes as you will see them on a globe. I’ve even written a tutorial on how to avoid this very issue. But I guess I was too close to the project to realise this myself.
Revisiting the 2016 Model
The inevitable consequence of these revelations is that I must revisit the results of my Lining Up project and revise my model to reflect the proper shapes of the continents.
While this may at first seem like a setback, on the contrary I view it as a massive step forward. After all, I’ve been searching for the proper projection for Mystara for years; my first assumption was wrong, but that does nothing to take away from my excitement at finally knowing the correct projection.
Make no mistake, this is a wonderful thing. It means that in fact not only the world map but also all of the hex maps have been mapped to a proper projection all along.
However, there are problems. Hey, it wouldn’t be Mystara if we didn’t have problems to work through, would it?
The main issues are:
Latitude — Jurassic Mystara places the Known World coastline further south than any of our previous models. Thyatis is at about 25°N. Moreover, the northern parts of Brun are also further south, with Farend coming at 51ºN. This compared to official figures of 30ºN and 60ºN respectively, which we were able to achieve in my 2016 model.
Size — scaling by the hex maps, Jurassic Mystara is over 36,000 miles in circumference. If this problem sounds familiar, that’s because we already dealt with it two years ago in my last project.
Projection — now that we know that the official maps are mapped to the Mollweide projection, it’s possible to georegister all of the official hex maps. Whereas before we had thought they ignored projections entirely, and therefore defaulted to Equirectangular, in fact that was not the case. The trouble now, however, is that moving the continents around on the globe — as we may want to do to fix the latitude issues — may result in breaking this connection. In other words, if we change the configuration of the world to fix latitudes, it may require all the hex maps to be redone.
In this new series of articles, I’m going to work through these problems, with the ultimate goal of creating a hybrid 2018 model of Mystara that incorporates Jurassic Mystara’s shapes into my 2016 model.
One last thing: if you’re worried that this will delay the 72 mile per hex continental maps, you can relax, as I still intend to finish all three of these maps. Eventually I will likely need to create updated versions, but I feel it’s definitely worth finishing these three maps now.
Do you have any comments or suggestions? Please feel free to chip in below!
One last word…
If you enjoy my maps and would like to see more of them, you may be interested to check out my Patreon.
